Going beyond organic: analog forestry

They thrived under the program, Raj says, more than tripling their income while restoring habitat in what was formerly an ecologically devastated area.

Another Forest Garden Products success: The Sateré-Mawé tribes in Brazil are successfully selling certified guarana fruit in Europe and Asia. The fruit is used in vitamin supplements and is found in soft drinks sold around the world.

You can raise any food with analog forestry, says Mr. Vikrnatha. What’s needed for certification is a minimum 40 percent shade cover on the property, he adds, so even with rice, which is typically cultivated in open fields, providing a stand of forest apart from the paddy enables certification.

Finding markets for these certified products remains the biggest challenge.

One solution is to persuade the organic community to adopt higher biodiversity standards. That way, crops grown in forests could achieve special recognition, not only for the organic way they’re produced but also for the habitat they preserve.

Already the influential International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements has accepted the biodiversity science underlying analog forestry, moving recently to incorporate it into its recommended system of best practices.

Within the US organic movement a similar discussion is now taking place, but so far its import is largely confined to preventing monoculture practices.

In Montana, “We have the most acreage of organic wheat in the country,” says Barry Flam, a member of the National Organics Standards Board who has pushed the board to place greater emphasis on biodiversity. “When I talk to our state [organic] certifier, he’s rather embarrassed that a lot of that has come at the expense of grasslands.”

Transmitting this to the consumer will be hard. For one thing, consumers focused on sustainability are more concerned about fair trade and animal welfare than analog forestry, says Urvashi Rangan, a senior scientist with Consumers Union.

“It’s up to the FGPs [Forest Garden Products labels] of the world to be able to market themselves by creating an awareness of the value of their certification,” says Joel Dee of Edward & Sons, a pioneering California-based organic foods trader that buys Lanka Organics coconuts and mangos but doesn’t yet market the FGP label. “If they can do this, then it behooves guys like me to get behind them.”

One key ally of the movement is Gua­yapi Tropical, the French company representing the Sateré-Mawé tribes. Its president, Claudie Ravel, has long championed organic and fair-trade products and is now campaigning for analog forestry with the French government and European Commission.

Ms. Ravel sees greater understanding of biodiversity in the trade in France, Germany, and Belgium and remains optimistic that Europe is ready to embrace higher biodiversity standards.

“It’s a niche,” she adds, “but we are growing every year now because we now see consumers who understand the challenge of a future with climate change.”

Previous

1 | 2